


a thousand graves

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Break Up, Depression, M/M, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 16:18:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: dan’s walked out too many times to count. he always came back.until he didn’t.





	a thousand graves

**Author's Note:**

> loosely inspired by talia by king princess

Phil still sleeps on the right side of the bed. The left remains untouched, as if saving the space will make Dan come back. The pillow doesn’t smell like him anymore, but when Phil closes his eyes he can still taste the bitter tang of cologne he’d sometimes kiss from Dan’s neck.

There’s still a half empty bottle of it in the bathroom. It sits on the counter by the sink, the lid still screwed shut tightly. Phil is afraid the scent of it will be too much. 

Everything feels like too much. Every reminder is an open wound, a bleeding gash that won’t seem to heal. 

But he can’t get rid of them. The reminders are all he has left to prove that any of it was real. All he has are the pieces Dan left behind: a pair of camo patterned socks in the top drawer, a tiny silver hoop earring. The candle Phil bought him for Christmas, the nice one in the ceramic pot that smelled like sandalwood and cedar and cost half a month’s rent. He only burned it once, but it burned for hours. The wick is black, the wax melted down halfway and cooled into hard ripples.

The memory is too much. Phil can still remember that night so clearly, still feel Dan’s hands on his body as the flame flickered in the dark of their bedroom. He can still smell overpriced essential oils mixed with sweat and sex, still hear Dan whispering in his ear that things were ok, that no matter how hard things got they’d always have each other. 

The memories play tricks, dancing through Phil’s head when he sleeps and making him believe those words are still true. Letting him wake up with hope in his heart only to be crushed anew when he reaches out for Dan to find his side of the bed cold. 

Every morning starts with that sinking feeling of emptiness. Every morning Dan’s not there snoring softly next to him Phil panics, breath coming in broken, heart aching in a way that’s very real and very painful. He’s never felt pain like this, because this is a kind that can’t be treated. 

Nothing can bring Dan back. Phil doesn’t even know where he’s gone. He sends texts out into the void, never to be returned. He keeps calling the same number and listening to it ring, somehow hoping every time that this will be the time he gets an answer.

Dan’s walked out too many times to count. He always came back.

Until he didn’t. 

Phil called Dan’s nan once, a few days after he realized Dan really wasn’t just sleeping off a bad episode in a hotel or on a mate’s sofa like he usually would.

“He’s not here, love,” she’d said. Her voice was apologetic, but he could hear in it that she knew where he was. Whether or not he was with her it didn’t matter. She knew where he was and she wasn’t going to tell him. 

“Take care of yourself,” she’d said and he hadn’t had the courage to respond. He’d hung up the phone and crawled into bed and stayed there for two days. 

He doesn’t know how to do the things he knows he needs to do. He wastes too much time, all his time, thinking about Dan and the life they’d been building. 

That life is gone. It’s dead and Phil’s dug its grave but he doesn’t know how to bury it. 

That’s all his life is now, a maze of holes six feet deep and full of the things he’d thought were sure. Friends, plans, dreams, all ripped away. Everything that remains is haunted by the ghost of what’s been taken. Even if he can salvage anything, it’ll be so different that he can’t even picture it. 

His mum tells him it’s not his fault, that Dan was broken from the start and Phil did all he could to try to pick up the pieces, to try to help Dan outrun the kind of demons that can’t be outrun. Not without help, _real_ help, from people who know what they’re doing.

It’s the first time he’s ever cursed at his mum. She doesn’t fucking understand. She doesn’t know Dan like Phil does. Like Phil did. She doesn’t know just how beautiful he could be. How good. 

She hadn’t been there on the days he and Dan would stay up all night talking and laughing and kissing and picking the colour of the walls in their dream home and arguing about what they'd name their children someday. 

She hadn’t been there on the days he was nothing more than a husk of himself. She’d never seen the days he couldn’t eat or sleep or talk. She’d never had to watch the light go out in his warm brown eyes. She just doesn’t fucking understand.

Maybe that’s what hurts the most though, even more than losing the man he loved, the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Maybe knowing he wasn’t enough is what hurts the most. He wasn’t enough to save him. 

Or maybe… maybe it _is_ his fault, but in a different way. Maybe his job was never to save Dan. Maybe he took on too much and Dan resented him for it. Maybe somewhere along the line he became more nurse than lover and Dan couldn’t live with that anymore. 

Actually, _that’s_ what hurts the most. He’s never going to know. He’ll never have an answer. He’ll have to live the rest of his life not knowing what he did wrong, what he should have done differently. 

How does he get past that? And how does he get past worrying who’s looking after Dan now? How can he sleep at night knowing Dan is out there living a new life, a life he chose to cut Phil out of without even a single word?

He doesn’t cry anymore. Now he just clings. If he closes his eyes he can live in a world of his choosing. He can live in a world where Dan is still his, where they still spend entire days playing video games and making each other coffee and having sex in the shower. He can live in a world where they order burgers for season premiers and argue over whose turn it is to answer the door for early morning Amazon packages. 

In a world of his choosing he still falls asleep with Dan’s arms wrapped around him. He can still hear Dan playing the piano from the other room while Phil makes dinner. He still kisses chapped lips in the morning and feels safe knowing there’s one thing that will always be sure. 

The world he lives in is not one of his choosing. He didn’t choose this. When he wakes up, he wakes up alone. The bed is cold, and too big for just one person. There’s no more cereal in the kitchen and the cupboard doors are always still open. There’s no one to close them for him anymore. 

He didn’t choose what his life is now, digging graves and tending a wound that will forever remain open. He didn’t choose it but he lives it every day. And he still sleeps on the right side of the bed.


End file.
